Conservative College Papers Counteract liberal Bias

Conservative Newspapers Pop Up on Campuses
Saturday, May 17, 2003
By Claudia Cowan

SAN FRANCISCO — Like thousands of other conservative-minded college students across the country, some at U.C.-Berkeley (search) are waging war against what they call rampant liberalism on campuses. Their weapon: a right-leaning monthly newspaper called The California Patriot (search).

“We like to be watchdogs,” said Seth Norman, the managing editor of the Patriot.

In fact, more students than ever are taking their minority opinions into the public domain to balance out the messages their peers are getting in the classroom at school.

From the Patriot and The Stanford Review to The Yale Free Press, a growing number of conservative periodicals are now circulating online or on campus – 50 percent more than two years ago, according to Collegiate Network (search), an organization that helps such papers get off the ground.

“In the last year, 35 colleges have contacted us, and of those colleges, 18 have started new conservative publications,” said Bryan Auchterlonie, executive director of the Collegiate Network.

One reason for the sudden increase? The aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, when many students became disenchanted with their mostly liberal professors who suggested that the U.S. had it coming.

“Almost every professor here has a political agenda and almost every professor here is pushing that agenda,” said Norman. “The university is moving to take away guidelines that would restrict pushing your political agenda in classrooms, which is one of the stories that we’ve covered.”

The conservative college papers have generally been sticking to issues that affect students. One issue that's been covered, for example, is whether tuition money is being used to fund anti-war rallies without allowing any alternative speakers or opinions.

“It’s not necessarily even about conservatism as an ideology – it’s about showing people that there’s more than one point of view out there,” said Piotr Kosicki, editor-in-chief of The Stanford Review.

The students admit that there are risks involved in taking on liberal teachers and administrators. At Berkeley, thousands of copies of a controversial right-wing newspaper were recently stolen, and student reporters have received death threats.

But since most students form their political beliefs during their college years, those who work for the conservative publications say they feel obligated to present the other side.

"Because we live in such a liberal bastion, we have a duty to provide the other half of the balanced education for students," said Norman.

Yes indeedy! Conservative Collage papers DO exist. There is one here in the Liberal Collage town next door. They (The Oregon Commentator) have gotten death threats and vandalism but keep on plugging away.

Am proud to say that some years back I even Cartooned for them a bit. That was just before Desert Storm.

I did this one for them during that period. Unfourtunately, this is the only one I've scanned thus far.

ravinraven

May 18, 2003, 09:05 AM

Conservative college papers are a great thing. Getting speakers to talk about "the other side" is necessary also.

I've observed two episodes, one just about three or four weeks ago, where conservative speakers have shown up on campuses in far northern New York. Anyway, Charles Wiley came to SUNYPotsdam in the spring of 1996. His message was "What's right with America?" The AntiKulturalists tried to keep him away. The chief AK babe said that such a message would be a slap in the face of her AK flock. The college Republicans were harrassed in class. Posters were ripped down and there was a concerted attempt by the AKs to disrupt the meeting. Mr. Wiley tied these fools in knots. He smiled and spoke facts softly. They screamed and stormed out. I wrote the incident up for the [I]Campus Reports and was called a liar. The AK babe wrote a rebuttal to my article. SInce there were two females [one was her, the AK chief] and one male administrator who had fought against the lecture, I quoted the three of them in the article. The AK babe said I must be sexist since I quoted two women and only one man in my tirade!

The latest episode involved Dan Flynn who showed up at St. Lawrence University in the next town up the road from P'dam. [St. Law.U. is where VP Mondale's daughter went to college. Now there's an intellect that's at least amazing. But I digress again.] Flynn wrote Why The Left Hates America . Needless to say, that brought out a bit of opposition. I attempted to eat dinner with him at a restaurant near that august University. I say attempted because we sat down at about 5:20 and hadn't gotten served by 7:00 p.m. We had a nice chat with the campus Republicans from SLU, but he never got to eat. Dan had to leave to set up for the lecture. The next week I learned that the university owns the restaurant we were in. Hmmm...

For Dan's lecture, posters were torn down or replaced by posters giving the wrong location and time for the lecture and so forth.

Through all this I wonder where the diversity is? Any attempt at true diversity is met with thuggish tactics. Who were great at thuggish tactics. The Nazis. That's why I refer to the modern day campus liberals as Neo-nazis. I believe they would actually kill a conservative speaker to shut him/her up if they thought they could get away with it.

It is great that many students of today are able to see through the campus Nazi network. Let's hope it keeps up!

ravin[again]raven

CZ-75

May 18, 2003, 12:46 PM

But the lef...I mean liberals just care more, especially about civil rights, such as free speech. If they were trying to keep someone from speaking, then it must be for our own good.

UnknownSailor

May 18, 2003, 10:58 PM

David Horowitz (http://www.frontpagemagazine.com) is all over the extreme left bias in higher education like white on rice.

I read a couple of blogs (here (http://lonedissenter.blogspot.com/) and here (http://www.homestead.com/swygert/files/no2pencil.html)) that specialize in it, too, primarily by exposing it for the world to see.